


A Happy New Year

by eeveestho



Series: Yakulev Week 2014 [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 20:06:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2163504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eeveestho/pseuds/eeveestho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yaku spends New Year's Day with the Haiba family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Happy New Year

**Author's Note:**

> yakulev week - day 4: holiday

“Oh, please tell me you’re not wearing that,” Yaku said with a groan as Lev opened the door.

He looked down at his knit sweater and jeans. “Why, what’s wrong with it?” he asked, sounding slightly hurt. “It’s comfy. I’m gonna wear a jacket over it, probably.”

“Look at what I’m wearing, Lev!” he snarled, gesturing to his own outfit. He had put on a hakama to go visit the shrine on New Year’s Day, like everyone in his family always did. Except this year, thankfully, he was going with the Haiba family… who, by the looks of it, did not dress up for the occasion. Over Lev’s shoulder, he could see his eldest sister Natalia poking her head out of the kitchen curiously, wearing a scoop-necked top.

“You look really good, Yaku,” Lev said softly, his eyes raking over Yaku’s body hungrily. “Very handsome.”

Yaku frowned at Yaku, trying to pretend the compliment didn’t make his stomach warm with happiness. “Thanks, but I’m gonna look like an idiot walking with your family if you’re all wearing casual stuff!” he hissed.

“Nah, you’ll look cool!” he said enthusiastically.

Yaku stared at Lev flatly, and then sighed and said, “Alright, let me in already.”

He entered the living room to a chorus of greetings from the whole Haiba clan. Yaku was very used to being greeted warmly by at least a few Haibas whenever he came over, but it was a bit alarming to see everyone – both of Lev’s parents and all six Haiba children including Lev’s adult brothers and sisters – all assembled. And not one of them was wearing a kimono or hakama, he noted with dread.

Mrs Haiba, a small Russian woman even shorter than Yaku, came hurrying over immediately to grab Yaku in a tight, warm hug. “Happy new year, Morisuke!” she hummed as she hugged him.

“Happy new year, Mrs Haiba,” he replied, hugging her back, albeit less tightly. He was still getting used to how incredibly physically affectionate the Haibas were. But, he loved it. He loved them.

“You look nice, Yaku,” Mr Haiba said, smiling warmly at him from the couch.

“Um, thanks,” Yaku said, shifting awkwardly. He felt very self conscious and ridiculous, in full formal clothing in the midst of the Haibas in their regular clothes. “I didn’t realize that you all would be dressed regularly. I’m used to going in traditional clothes with my family.”

“Lev, why don’t you go get changed?” Mrs Haiba said, still smiling warmly at Yaku.

“What?” Lev squawked indignantly. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

She turned on him, her smile melting into a stern glare developed from raising six children. “You’re going to embarrass poor Morisuke if you go to the shrine with him like that!” she said sharply.

Yaku tried to stifle a grin at Lev’s angry pout. He looked about as intimidating as a kitten. “But, you’re all wearing regular stuff!” he retorted. “Are you going to go change, too?”

“No, of course not, don’t be ridiculous,” she said brusquely. Mrs Haiba turned to Yaku, her expression becoming sweet and kind again. “Would you go help him put on his hakama, dear? Yours looks so good – I assume you put it on yourself? Poor Lev wouldn’t have the faintest idea of where to begin…”

“I’m sixteen, mom, I can dress myself!” Lev howled, while his siblings sniggered. After she gave him a very pointed, very skeptical look, he repeated, “I can! I know how to put on a hakama!!”

“Fine, suit yourself. Call us if you need help,” she said with a shrug. “Morisuke, are you hungry? We made some mochi last night, here, have some…”

Any awkwardness Yaku felt about showing up to the Haiba house in full traditional clothing slowly melted away as he started chatting and laughing with them. He had gone over to the Haibas more and more over the last year to hang out with Lev (and also mess around in his room a bit, naturally), and in that time had gotten to know the Haiba family and love them as his own. Mrs Haiba most of all welcomed him with open arms, giving him the love, warmth, joy, and acceptance that was so lacking in his own family.

It was true that his family’s new years were more traditional, with full traditional regalia, but they never did this. They never crowded around a small coffee table jam-packed with food, telling stories about their first dreams of the new year, watching the twins Anton and Dina play a nearly evenly matched game of karuta (and then having Ivanya, with her musical ear, come in and destroy them both effortlessly), trying to peel mandarin oranges in one go. It was fun, it was informal, and it was everything Yaku never got when he had to spend New Year’s Day with his own family.

A few minutes later, though, a plaintive cry of “Yakuuuuu?” from the stairwell made Yaku get up with a sigh to go help Lev. Just as Mrs Haiba had guessed, Lev had no earthly idea how to tie a hakama. He had managed to get the kimono on, but Lev was gripping the hakama in his hands, loose, with an utterly pathetic look of helplessness.

Yaku sighed and, squatting down in front of Lev, said, “Okay, step into it and then don’t move unless I tell you to.”

His hands moved quickly and easily, tying the proper knots and threading the cords through the proper spots. He had been drilled on how to put a hakama on when he was younger until it made his head spin. Lev watched him quietly, his eyes intent and serious upon Yaku. His gaze made Yaku want to stop what he was doing and just push Lev up against the wall, to hell with the shrine visit with the family. But, as it was, there were six people downstairs waiting for them and he had no doubt that Mrs Haiba would not hesitate to investigate if they lingered too long upstairs.

“There,” Yaku said, standing back up and brushing the hakama pleats straight as he stood up. “You’re done.”

There was a full-length mirror at the end of the hallway, and the two of them stood in front of it for a moment. For half a second, just a fraction of a moment, Yaku thought it looked like they were about to make another sort of trip, down a certain aisle. But then Mrs Haiba yelled up the stairs for them to hurry up and the moment was gone, Lev bounding down the stairs. Yaku followed shortly after.

Even though Yaku did still feel like he stuck out in his hakama as they walked to the shrine, he did feel much less conspicuous next to his towering half-Russian boyfriend who was also wearing hakama.

Actually, the entire group stuck out. They made a very weird mismatched group, from an outsider’s perspective. All the Haiba women were shorter than Yaku, while all the men were around Lev’s height. Mrs Haiba stood out with her fading blonde hair, which Lev, Viktor, and Ivanya had inherited. And then there was Yaku and Lev in their traditional clothing with the rest of them in casual clothes. All in all, they looked, for all intents and purposes, like two or three families mashed together inexpertly. But they were all Haibas, and that meant that everyone was accepted, even Yaku.

As they got closer to the shrine and the crowd began to get thicker, Lev grabbed Yaku’s hand and, pulling him deeper into the crowd, murmured in his ear, “Hey, let’s try to lose my family.”

Yaku stared up at Lev, affronted. “Why would we do such a thing?”

He deflated slightly. “To… make out? Or whatever?”

“I only see Natalia like three times a year, we’re not going anywhere,” Yaku scoffed, pulling Lev back over towards the others.

Yaku loved the Haibas, loved chatting with them, soaking up their affection and love. He especially enjoyed watching Lev’s five older siblings tease Lev, the baby of the family. Yaku suspected that that was probably why Lev was trying to flee from them in the crowd. He kept a steady grip on Yaku’s hand, so they wouldn’t get separated in the crush of bodies as they walked up the stairs to the shrine, but Yaku did notice that he did seem to be walking diagonally, and that the heads of the other Haiba men, sticking out above the mass of the crowd, kept getting further and further away.

“You can hang out with them when we get home, Yaku!” Lev whined, as Yaku started to pull him back towards his family. “We don’t need to pray with them!”

“It’s New Year’s Day, you’re supposed to spend it with family,” Yaku retorted.

“You sound like my mom,” he grumbled.

“Good. I hope I sound like her more often, she’s fantastic.”

Yaku didn’t quite succeed in reuniting with the Haiba family by the time they reached the shrine, but they were close enough that they could still see them. And they could easily spot Lev, with his silvery blonde hair and 180 centimeters of gangly height.

“What are you going to wish for?” Lev asked Yaku, as they inched closer and closer to the praying bell. He was eyeing it excitedly, and Yaku had an unpleasant premonition of Lev shaking the bell much too vigorously and for far too long.

“Aren’t you supposed to keep your wishes secret, or they won’t come true, or something?” Yaku said absently, turning back to stare ahead.

“This isn’t a birthday cake, shrine wishes are totally fair game!”

Yaku hummed skeptically. “I’m not convinced. I’m not telling you my wish.”

“What?? You’re so stingy sometimes, Yaku…”

“What are you going to ask for, then?” he asked Lev, who was now sticking his bottom lip out in a pout.

“For me to become the ace of Nekoma in March!” he said, without an ounce of hesitation. His pout had melted into a predatory grin, and he was now glaring at the bell like it was a volleyball he wanted nothing more than to spike.

Yaku stared up at him. “…You really are a simple guy, aren’t you?” he mused out loud, half to himself.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Oh! Yaku, it’s our turn, it’s our turn!”

They stepped forward together to the now vacant bell. After throwing their tribute money in, they rung it – Yaku’s prediction of Lev being way too into ringing it turned out to be unsurprisingly true – clapped twice, and put their hands together to pray.

Please let Lev not break up with me this year.

Yaku turned away from the shrine, leaving his spot open so someone else could come pray, and Lev followed him a few moments after. “So are you gonna tell me what your wish is now that you’ve made it?” Lev asked, bouncing a little.

“Why would I tell you after I made the wish?”

Lev pouted at him, pulling the puppy dog eyes in an attempt to make Yaku crack, but Yaku was (mostly) immune to those now, and just kept walking with a laugh.

They stopped for a moment to try to locate the rest of the Haibas, who they had now lost entirely in the shuffle, and after a moment on his phone, Lev said that they were heading back to the house and to meet them there.

“My mom said we can come back whenever, though,” Lev said, with a manic glint in his eye. Yaku let out a sigh: honestly, why Lev kept wanting to pull Yaku away to go make out in public was beyond him. There were at least a thousand people around the shrine right now, and Lev thought Yaku, who loathed PDA and didn’t even like holding hands in public, would want to go make out against a tree somewhere? Fat chance.

But they did wander around the shrine grounds a bit more, chatting and enjoying each other’s company. Lev badgered him into buying a fortune lot (from, in Yaku’s opinion, an extremely unsavoury looking old man who eyed the two of them with suspicion and clear distrust).

“I got half-blessing,” Lev said, looking down at his drawn lot with a wrinkled nose. “’Good health, some financial luck’… sweet, I could use some money. How about you?”

Yaku stared down at his. ‘Great blessing’ in fat kanji stared up at him. ‘You will be surrounded by love, both romantic and familial’, it promised him. ‘All your professional endeavours will go extremely well.’

Even if he wanted to hide his fortune from his boyfriend, Lev’s monstrous height advantage over him didn’t give him much of a chance. Lev gasped when he glimpsed it. “I don’t think I’ve ever got a great blessing!” he said, in low tone of awe. “Wow, Yaku, you should keep that.”

“I thought you were supposed to tie it to a tree to make it come true?” Yaku said, looking up at Lev with confusion.

“Isn’t that with bad fortunes? So that your bad luck will become good, or something?”

They stared at the lots for a moment, confused.

“…Well, it’d be more fun to tie it to a tree, wouldn’t it?” Lev said in a low, conspiratorial voice. Yaku grinned at him, and the two of them went over to a nearby plum tree, its bare thin brances swaying gently in the breeze. There were already at least two dozen lots tied to the branches there, from shrine goers who had already come and gone.

Lev tied both of theirs to the tree, since he was taller and the branches were at face-level for him already, and then, after staring at the two pieces of paper knotted to the tree, side by side, started to head back to the Haiba house.

“When we get back,” Yaku said, “Do you wanna play hanetsuki?”

“…You just wanna draw on my face with ink.”

“What? Noooo. Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

“You do! You’re lying, you just want to draw on my face, Yaku!”

“What am I, six?”

“No, but I have five older siblings! I know that when someone asks me to play hanetsuki, I’m just gonna end up covered in ink!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so bad at the game, then.”

The two of them bickered all the way back to Lev’s house, their shouts and laughs piercing the sharp early January air.

Their hakamas swished softly against the other’s as they walked close together, their hands linked together underneath the sleeves of their kimono, Yaku already thinking of the food and family that waited for him just a few blocks away. As he looked up at his laughing boyfriend, for the first time in his eighteen years, he really believed that this time he would have a happy new year.


End file.
